


Blue Skies and Wide Eyes

by galinda



Series: Music Destiel Ficlets [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Marching Band, Ficlet, First Kiss, M/M, Marching Band
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7719964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galinda/pseuds/galinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean keeps hearing about some guy with an amazing "performance face" during his senior year of high school marching band. It's not until he actually sees it that he understands the hype.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Skies and Wide Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is based off of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peSda70aXSk
> 
> thanks for reading!

At the first show, it was just a joke. The sun was beating down on everyone, making it especially difficult for the young performers to focus on anything but the sweat building beneath their uniforms. After their prelims performance, Dean was excited to finally take his shako off, grimacing at the small pool of sweat inside. Just as he finishes making sure that all the drums are in a perfect line, because their rival school is placed next to them in the lot and he wants to seem intimidating, he hears his best friend, Charlie, yelling his name. Despite not having to wear a shako herself, being in the front ensemble, even her hair is damp from sweat.

“Dean, dude, you _have_ to see this guy!” She yells, earning a glare from a student working on collecting all the cables and organizing them.

“What guy?” Dean asks, tucking a pair of sticks into his stick bag with his foot to complete the line.

“This guy! From Garrison! He’s in their pit, and he’s _amazing!_ ” She exclaims, grabbing Dean’s arm and dragging him away from their trailer and down the parking lot.

“Charlie, you think everyone who does pit is amazing,” Dean groans. She stops suddenly, making him crash into her back. In front of them, a line of percussionists slowly makes their way away from a trailer.

“Damn, we missed them,” Charlie complains, turning back to Dean. “He’s the synth player, with the sex hair.” Dean looks around her, barely spotting a mess of brown hair turning the corner, his keyboard rolling in front of him.

He doesn’t realize the hype around the boy until later while warming up for finals when he sees Charlie aggressively narrowing her eyebrows and widening her eyes in an attempt to resemble him. It’s short lived, their instructor telling her to knock it off.

 

After the second show, this time other members of the drumline joining in on the face-making (which makes their instructor even more annoyed) it had become a running joke in the entire band. Practice later that week was filled with people trying their best to make expressions while practicing, whether it was in warm ups, water breaks, or the last run of the night. But Dean didn’t understand the hype. It seemed like he was the only one who hadn’t seen this guy.

On the way to their third show of the season, Charlie practically squealed next to him, interrupting his music. With a sigh, he takes an earbud out and turns to look at her phone. She’s on Facebook, scrolling through someone’s profile. He recognizes the mop of dark hair. “Charlie, seriously? That pit guy?”

With a huff she closes the window and puts her phone back in her pocket. “Hey, we kind of talked at the last competition and I knew his name. He’s the one who said yes to the friend request.” Dean shrugs and puts his earbud back in.

After their performance they pass another band waiting to enter the field. Dean recognizes the uniform, knowing it’s the Garrison. When they reach the pit, the keyboard player that everyone’s freaking out about looks up and smiles at Charlie. She gives him the thumbs up and he does it back. He makes eye contact with Dean, who tries his best to look busy while tapping his snare for everyone to stay in step.

“Good luck,” the pianist says, and Dean nods in response, ignoring the way his hand slips off tempo when he sees how blue the boy’s eyes are.

 

After a long Saturday rehearsal, Dean collapses onto his bed, flinging his bag on the ground. He takes his phone out of his pocket, noticing a friend request from Facebook. Hesitantly he clicks on it, and becomes transfixed with the blue eyes. He recognizes the piano player, now registering the name in his head as he clicks accept. _Castiel Novak._

He starts scrolling through the guy’s page, because who wouldn’t? All there really is are photos of him from various marching band practices, most when he doesn’t realize they’re being taken. It’s nice, actually, because then Dean can really see his passion for the art. One particularly catches his eye. In the shot, Castiel is in the middle of rehearsing part of a piece by himself, and his eyes shine so bright that they leave chills down Dean’s spine. Now he knows why everyone loves watching him perform.

 

The rest of the season goes by, along with two competitions, but he doesn’t see the boy. He’s tempted to sneak off before warm ups just to find him, but gets distracted by the rush of setting up. Next thing he knows, it’s his last competition as a high schooler. It makes his chest pain, but he focuses on getting through it.

“Hurry up, captain o’ captain, it’s the final stretch,” Charlie jokes while watching Dean struggle to unpack his snare.

“Aren’t you chipper,” Dean snaps back, carefully places his drum on the asphalt. When she doesn’t reply, he looks up, only to be met with a quiet sob. Sighing, he gets up and wraps his arms around her, pressing her red hair into his black and white uniform.

“Where’d the time go?” She whispers.

“I don’t know,” he replies, fighting back tears himself, because he doesn’t want the other drumlines to think he’s weak.

After a minute, Charlie pulls back, a smile on her face. “Remember that time freshman year when you fell _into_ a trashcan?”

“Fuck you, Bradbury. I’m glad this is our last show.”

“Oh, come on Dean.” The drummer just shakes his head and continues his ministrations.

The glare he gets from their instructor doesn’t faze him when his tap-off his faltered as his gaze meets with those blue eyes.

 

It’s finally the moment he’s been waiting all season for. He and Charlie made sure to get seats in the bleachers right in front of where the front ensembles would be for the next phase of competition. When he spotted the red uniform coming down the track, he couldn’t help but smile. Castiel doesn’t notice them, too busy setting up his keyboard.

The show starts, and immediately Dean becomes transfixed on the brunette. As the music crescendos, his posture gets taller and he starts looking around. By the end of the first movement he’s pulsing with the music with his entire upper body. The ballad is much slower, starting with a piano solo that leaves Dean on the edge of his seat, transfixed with the musician.

The last movement makes him understand the hype. From his understanding, the concept of the show seems to be a man slowly going insane. So is Castiel. With every beat of the music, he changes his facial expression, from dreary to downright scary. The ending chord of the song sends chill down his spine. Castiel’s eyes widen as wide as Dean thinks possible, and he smiles, almost like the Joker.

“See what I mean?” Charlie says as the band shuffles off the field, the blue eyed boy in suit.

 

With the semi-finals over, Dean and the band are thrilled to learn that they’ll be moving on to finals. He’s also thrilled that that means that they get an hour of free time before warm-ups, because it also means that he’ll get to see Castiel. (Although he’s not too thrilled about competing against him).

He finds the blue-eyed boy sitting alone under a tree, scrolling through his phone. “Hey,” he says, smiling.

Castiel looks up, startled for a second, before smiling back. “Oh. Hello, Dean. How was your performance?”

Dean sits down next to the other boy, grateful to be out of the Kansas sun. “We made finals, which is pretty cool. I saw you guys. It was pretty sick.”

“Thank you,” Castiel responds. “I wish I had the chance to watch your band perform.”

“It’ll be online soon enough. I’m surprised you haven’t gone viral yet.”

The other’s boy’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Dude, you’re like the best performer I’ve ever seen. I don’t even know how you do the face stuff without messing up.”

Castiel laughs. “Oh, I’ve heard. It’s just how I synchronize myself with the music. When I find the online video of you performing I expect to see the same thing.”

“It’s on, then.” Dean snarks.

They spend the next hour talking about their history, funny things about band, and Castiel even shows Dean some of his faces. Before they part, they exchange numbers.

It isn’t until later when they see each other again in the bleachers before scores are announced that Dean finds himself absolutely transfixed with Castiel’s tired eyes. As the sun set, the temperature fell, and they decided to share a blanket (but not without a teasing session from Charlie). Dean cheers as loud as he can when his school gets called for fifth, not too bad considering his freshman year they placed eleventh.

When third place announced and the Garrison still hasn’t been said, Castiel grabs Dean’s hand in shock. On the field, two drum majors in blue step forward for second, and Dean swears he loses feeling in his hand.

“And the Kansas Band Association is proud to announce that this year’s first place finalist is Garrison High School!”

With a scream Castiel shoots up, bringing Dean with him. “Nice job, man. Congrats!”

“Oh… I… I have no words, I just…” Castiel stutters before grabbing Dean by his shoulders and pulling him in for a long-awaited kiss.

Despite it being his last day as a member of the band, Dean can’t be anymore happier. Especially when he finds out that in a few weeks he’ll be auditioning for the same indoor ensemble as the blue-eyed boy with the crazy performance face.

**Author's Note:**

> i love comments


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